I recently ran across some tab that sounded right but it was quite a workout moving up and down the fretboard. I see this all the time when looking at tab found on the internet. It made a fairly easy song a lot more difficult. Can you spot the problems?

"Too Hot to Handle" by UFO
(Unknown tabber)

Intro/verse (X4)
e|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
B|-----10p9-----3p2------------------10p9-------------------------------|
G|-999-9--------2---777---------999--9----------------------------------|
D|-999-9----777-2---777---------777--9----------------------------------|
A|-777------777-----555---------777-------------------------------------|
E|----------555---------3b4-0-------------------------------------------|


If you don't see the problems go ahead and fire up the song on YouTube and play along.

Figure it out yet?

Don't worry. If you haven't figured it out I'll give you the answer. It goes from an A power chord to an Asus4 (with a pull off) to a D power chord and you're going all over the fretboard. While I enjoy a good workout on the fretboard it's a lot easier if you play A at x022xx and the D at xx023x. It looks like this:

e|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
B|-----10p9-----3p2-333--------------10p9-------------------------------|
G|-999-9----222-2---222---------999--9----------------------------------|
D|-999-9----222-2---000---------777--9----------------------------------|
A|-777------000-----------------777-------------------------------------|
E|----------------------3b4-0-------------------------------------------|

The basic lesson is this... There is more than one way to play a chord. Seems obvious enough but sometimes it's easy to forget. If you find some tab that seems difficult to play then go ahead and experiment with different ways of playing the chords or experiment with similar chords. You just might find that it's easier to play and sounds better. In this case it's both.

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